GM: Please Approve Saab’s Deal

As if you didn’t figure out by now, this would be the appropriate time to politely lobby GM to please approve this deal (or at least counter with an acceptable revision). Not that anyone needed reminding, their Facebook wall has been flooded for weeks.

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Done. I wrote “GM – Please respect Saab and approve a deal which makes them survive. They really deserve that!”. I also uploaded a photo of a really nice Pearl White 9-4X Aero I took at the Saab Spring Show (Saab Vårsalong) in April this year. I want to be able to buy such a car one day! 🙂

I wonder what GM’s reaction is to all these posts at their Facebook page. Almost everything you see on their wall has to do with Saab. 😉

Jeff: you may not be able to say who, or how much, but you can give us a sense of what you know, I’m sure; when that is proved right by events, your credibility will be cemented. You give us so little to go on that we can’t judge whether, after the event, you knew anything at all or not. In consequence, it is clear that many here simply don’t accept your word / opinion on things – after all, it is easy to say ‘I know, but I’m not going to tell you’ and then, after the event, say… Read more »

There’s a push and pull here, basically what I’m allowed to say without pissing people off. I’d much rather keep my contacts after a successful deal in tact rather than violate their trust just for a few people here’s satisfaction. All I can reveal that’s helpful to anyone is that it’s not a final document but a framework that is set up to feel out an acceptable ownership structure, it’s by no means the final agreement. In other words, the lawyers will still have a lot of ironing out to do and approvals to sign if it’s green lighted. Also,… Read more »

Jeff, thank you – sometimes hinting and being explicit are 2 different things. I understand the need not to burn sources, but, as you say, there’s a balance. Re PangDa, I understand the concern at losing them but, equally, isn’t it true that Saab still have a valid distributorship agreement with PangDa for China regardless of the outcome of this transaction? If so, PangDa can still sell Saabs in China. Or do I have that wrong? Assuming that any third party involved in this deal has sufficient interest and financing to help to make the whole deal work for more… Read more »

I asked the same question, whether or not Pang Da is involved after this deal is immaterial to a deal that at least allows Saab to even exist in a month. As such I didn’t get an answer whether or not they’d be involved in selling the cars in China. Most likely I’d assume it would go through the Youngman channels, and I couldn’t even tell you what the Chinese production picture even looks like in this deal, though a JV is part of it. It’s possible that it doesn’t even exist for a few years until the GM tech… Read more »

+1 I’m not gonna go public and promoting something that I don’t know anything about! For instance; I think that it is a really poor idea to leave Pang Da out of this. Youngman want to build cars of their own – buying Saab is a shortcut to better technology and that is what GM is afraid of. And being bought by somebody who want to build cars of their own will not help Saab sell cars. Being bought by a company who lives of actually selling the cars is brilliant and exactly what Saab needs (except money). And bringing… Read more »

Ok, I can clarify this. Saab need stability financially but also from an owner perspective. Being overtaken 100% by Youngman and Pang Da would have provided that – we would have had somebody who wanted to sell lots of Saab cars and we would have had somebody who where interested in Saab providing reusable and scalable technology solutions. Excellent! I would have been satisfied and would have replaced our 9-3 SC from 2010 with a new 9-5 SC in approximately 6 months. But, keeping SWAN and bringing in Youngman and a American venture capitalism firm might create a mess with… Read more »

Remember the approve Antonov campaign here in SU. In hindsight, a mistake. As Patrik B is writing correctly, there is no way to lead a campaign for a deal or an ownership structure, where we do not know just the basics or essentials. Same point with regards to VM, he simply must be out of visibility within a new ownership structure. As opposed to PatrickB I would argue, he is a miserable entrepreneur, as you can see from the long term chart of Spyker / Swan shares. They have lost almost 100% over 10 years, no way to keep him… Read more »

Clarify. Had VA been approved in April, Saab would have been producing cars for almost this whole year (minus April). The aftermath of a potential future conviction of VA would be infinitely much easier to deal with than going a year without production!

I know that VA haven’t been found guilt of the charges but he is facing some serious acquisitions, so;

Apparently VA didn’t have the $$$ needed to save Saab as he (might have) looted one of his banks to get some cash to inject into Saab via VM. So you are saying that we should have let VA into Saab in the beginning of the so that he could inject even more money taken from his banks? Is that how we want to build the company?

Rune, I disagree. If VA had been allowed in, and if his source of cash was the 2 Baltic banks, Saab would still have been cash flow negative till the point that those banks folded , and its possible they would have folded that much earlier, if he took the kind of money out, that was needed to fund Saab. Therefore, once those banks went, so would have Saab. (judging by how quick convers sports initiatives went into administration) From saabs brand standpoint, better to be clean and broke than directly tainted from the alleged things he is accused of…..and… Read more »

Back in April, Saab needed a little nudge to get production going again. With continued growth they would not have needed further financing. And presumably, it would had been easier to borrow money for short-term financing once they had demonstrated that they were heading towards profitability.

I think you’re blinded by hate against VM and fail to acknowladge one simple thing : SAAB already had a loaded owner – car manufacturer for the past 20 years who could have made all what you’re writing here. They didn’t though. What would make you think that if GM didn’t, someone else will do it? Let’s look at few other examples Skoda , Seat, Nissan etc They’ve all been treated the same way SAAB was treated by GM – Low end brands. VM has the vision to make SAAB a great independent car company.,

I get what you’re all saying, but this is really, really simple: No deal = Saab bankruptcy. Do you understand what happens in a bankruptcy? Pang Da quit for several reasons, least of which because GM wouldn’t accept their offer and they weren’t willing to revise it, more so because they’re having their own liquidity issues.

At this moment I don’t have a problem promoting anything that saves Saab, even if it was only for a couple of months. In October, not knowing every little detail of the future of Saab didn’t affect my choice of vehicle, and it wouldn’t do it now either.

It is all about trust. The 1½ year old 9-3 we are driving will have a steady supply of spare parts in the future. The 9-5 have been produced in limited series and any spare parts might have limited supply and could probably be very expensive.

And if I make the judgment that I don’t trust the new owners – then I can’t take the families money to buy a new car for €40 000/$50 000 that might run out of spare parts. Then we will stick with the 9-3.

I really don’t see what is so wonderful about telling the world that you support something when you don’t know what it is! We’re apparently asking for GM to ‘approve’ something, but what? It is a bit silly, and doesn’t, in all honesty, seem to do credit to the Saab enthusiasts.

Not just trying to argue, no, and Jeff has kindly replied to my earlier comment on the same topic. My concern, for the record, is that if if the Saab fans seem like idiots for supporting something they don’t even know about, their usefulness and credibility is diminished.

What I don’t understand is there has been very little media coverage about Saab enthusiasts “occupying” the GM Facebook page. Does this mean nothing to the rest of the world? I’m amazed that any social community can go on this long for a cause. I’m even more amazed by the lack of media attention this is getting.

Showed my good will on the GM Facebook page. If there’s a long line of only Saab related requests, of course it does something. Logically, GM says no to a 100% ownership of one party, while their demands are about 20%. Now there’s a new combination possible: the Saab management knows that if they propose a ridiculous deal (or: very unlikely to succeed) they have made an instant grave. So my guess is that they create the most unlikely situation in their powers for GM to say no. Fingers crossed then.. would the American investing party from NY (as I… Read more »

Wow! Some of you sure have taken a 180 degree turn around on supporting who saves SAAB! If you have the money then make an offer! it’s not up to us to decide what is right for SAAB and there is a whole lot more riding on this deal than a few hundred opinions! 1000’s of jobs are on the line, possibly a few more businesses will also fail if SAAB does. Jeff and anyone else doesn’t need to divulge information he or they hold in confidence, for you to decide if 60 plus years of a company or the… Read more »

I agree, maybe polite emails withe predefined subject line such as “GM: Please Approve Saab’s Deal” would be a better ideea. It’s important to keep one same subject line so they can filter it out , and be able to do their real work too. We don’t want to block anything here.

My view on that is quite clear. II will not post anything on GM Facebook site for only one reason, and this is that I don’t have a fb-account because I don’t trust fb, otherwise I would politely ask GM to approve this deal. I don’t know that much about this deal, and I can’t tell if this is the best deal for Saab, so I have to trust Jeff, knowing that this deal and bankruptcy are the only to possibilities for Saab. So if you think that Saab has to die with dignity, whatever that means, stay in the… Read more »

I’ve now posted upon the wall. In case anyone is even remotely interested, this is mine: To those at GM, first, thank you for keeping the Saab flame alive for so many years, for investing in such splendid facilities in Sweden, for employing so many talented Swedish engineers, for permitting a post-GM Saab to have a chance with Spyker. As you’ve learned, as so many of us have learned, involvement with Saab is seldom simple or straightforward, but it is the community around it which makes it so much more than a simple brand. I don’t know enough about ‘the… Read more »

Facebook is simple, You can create an account in a few minutes. You don’t have to publish much more about yourself there than you do here, You should put in a photo or any other avatar to make it more credible though. If nothing else I can tell you that it is a nice sight to see all these saab photos on the GM page.

This may be very naive of me to say (and overly optimistic), but if all it took to buy Saab was someone who has the cash and who is not chinese, why aren’t more people interested? The price was 130 million or something, right? Is that all, no other money to front, no past bills? There are a LOT of companies sitting on a LOT of cash out there, especially in America where they keep it oversees to sidestep paying taxes. It’s a great investment, an even better PR story, you have solid orders from the Chinese, wonderful future products… Read more »

I’d like the to think it is possible to be a Saab enthusiast, and still have a real discussion about business. Saab (autos) has lost money for decades. GM lost over a billion. While many will point out that GM didn’t “get” Saab (which is really true), prior to that under partial and total Swedish ownership that perhaps did “get” Saab, it lost money then too. Under small company Spyker, Saab ran out of money in a year. It is difficult to call Saab an investment in the classic sense. But there is something magical about Saab, and that product… Read more »

Hipchecker, Keith’s answer gets to the main points, although I really don’t believe GM lost as much as they say (various accounting tricks, like apparently putting the failed Cadillac BLS on Saab’s books, for example). As I’ve pointed out many times, the reason why some wealthy non-Chinese company or individual doesn’t pony-up the money to buy a clearly discounted Saab isn’t the purchase price (a rounding error amount for many, even many celebrities), but the amount of money needed to invest to build back up the dealer network and design the future, well, everything (9-3, 9-4, 9-5). That number, plus… Read more »

I’ve got to say that in this case, I’m a little cynical about any activism on the part of the Saab community. It’s not going to affect the deal in any way. Both polite and nasty posts on the Facebook site or in letters to GM will be ignored. This is not something that can shame GM in the public’s mind; Saab is already dead. And to think that GM will ditch a deal because someone insults them is poppycock. GM will, or will not make a deal, purely on the basis of their own interests however they perceive them.… Read more »

You’re right Hugh, as usual. The first time around it was the same case, even with all the convoys. Sure, they made the Saab community feel like they had a role in influencing discussions, but we all know it came down to a business decision. GM’s brand perception was so incredibly low at the end of 2009 that killing off Saab wouldn’t have made that much of a difference to their PR- the key was it made financial sense to unload it the way they did. That didn’t stop every Saab community and even Saab themselves from using the PR… Read more »

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